NEWS

Piano duo to celebrate mentor with concert Sunday (April 6)

CHAPEL HILL -- The music of Brahms, Schumann and Bartok won’t be the only highlights of a Janus Duo Plus concert Sunday (April 6) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The performance, at 8 p.m. in Hill Hall Auditorium, also will mark the retirement from the music faculty of pianists Barbara Rowan and Francis Whang, each after more than 30 years of teaching at UNC. It will be the last in this year’s William S. Newman Artists’ Series presented by the music department, the 10^th anniversary season. The series is dedicated to the memory of Newman (1912-2000), a music professor at UNC for three decades.

Newman helped nab both Rowan and Whang for UNC back in the ‘70s, leading ultimately to formation of their Janus Duo in 1992 and their upcoming collaboration Sunday with five other UNC musicians – hence, the "Plus." Nine years ago, Newman could have claimed the title of inadvertent matchmaker as well when Rowan and Whang were married.

The two will begin the program Sunday with "Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Opus 56b," by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). Joining them on "Andante and Variations for Two Pianos," by Robert Schumann (1810-1856), will be Pamela Halverson, French horn, and cellists Brent Wissick and Stephanie Vial. "Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion" by Bèla Bartok will add percussion by Lynn Glassock and Andrew Hummer to the duo.

After this spring, the duo will no longer school UNC students in things like music fundamentals, 20^th-century piano literature and keyboard skills for majors in other instruments, as well as, of course, piano. But they will remain in Chapel Hill, teach private piano lessons and continue performing as the Janus Duo.

On April 24, they’ll perform with the UNC Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. Hill Hall Auditorium.

Newman was a mentor to both artists.  "He was very good to me," Rowan said. He asked her to play for him. She chose a Mozart sonata, "and he said, ‘Oh, yes.’ Why don’t you do some teaching for us and play a recital?"

Whang was teaching at Yale when Newman helped bring him to Chapel Hill. With a master’s degree in piano performance from the Juilliard School of Music, Whang has soloed with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Korean Broadcasting System Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony and Yale orchestra and wind ensemble. He has performed in venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, the San Francisco Opera House and Civic Auditorium and Washington’s Phillips Collection.

Rowan, with a master’s in music from Mills College in Oakland, Calif., studied on a Fulbright Scholarship to the National Conservatory of Music in Paris. She has soloed with the San Francisco and North Carolina symphonies and the Oakland Symphony Orchestra and played at the San Francisco Opera House and Civic Auditorium, Boston Atheneum and Carnegie Recital Hall.

The Janus Duo has performed in venues across the country, in England, Wales and Belgium and at the 1996 International Liszt Society Conference in the Czech Republic. Each summer since 1998, the duo has taught and performed at the summer Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop.

Through it all, they never forgot Newman.

"He was a wonderful man," Rowan said. "He would ride his motorcycle to play concerts, once as far as Seattle -- and he played hundreds of piano concerts."

Tickets for the Janus Duo Plus concert Sunday are $15 for the public, $12 for seniors and $5 for students. They may be purchased in 105 Hill Hall or at the concert. Free parking will be reserved for concert-goers in the Swain lot off Cameron Avenue behind Hill Hall. Call the music department at 962-1039 for more information.

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Series contact: Richard Luby, 929-0548
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 962-8589